What thoughts went through your head?
"I wish I would have spent more time at work". < Kidding...I hope.
Bushcraft and homesteading skills in WW3
- Thread starter HorseGuy
- Start date
-
BushMoot: Come along to the amazing Summer Moot 31st July - 5th August (extended Moot : 27th July - 8th August), a festival of bushcrafting and camping in a beautiful woodland PLEASE CLICK HERE for more information.
"I wish I would have spent more time at work". < Kidding...I hope.
3 minutes?3 mins?
I think we know what happened if you believed it was going to be the last big bang of your life.
< You sly old dog... >
Could have done it twice and still had time left for a cigarette.
With a name like ‘HorseGuy’ you can probably get away with it.
Much as I enjoy this banter guys, on this forum, you may be sailing close to the wind
johnnytheboy
Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
iirc the "zombie survival guide" recommended a bicycle as the ideal vehicle; at least most zombies i've encountered were wwaayyss to slow to catch oneYeh, but with a max speed of around 45mph you'll not escape the zombies
iirc the "zombie survival guide" recommended a bicycle as the ideal vehicle; at least most zombies i've encountered were wwaayyss to slow to catch one
A Penny farthing riding through a sea of undead would make epic cinema.
Thing is we'd just done that when the sirens went off. I was young and energetic in those days but still... I was dumbfounded, you run through if there any options and realise there aren't any. No where to run to, nowhere to hide. There was no basement and that close to the US base it would be pointless anyway.
An ironic laugh, and we just lay there waiting to see what would happen. Nothing did, and after a time we got up and made a coffee. As she worked on the base we found out afterwards what had happened, but it took a few days for the shock to wear off.
Of course it was an Englishman who first ran a mile in under 3 mins....
Most are defeated with a flexible stout pipe, failing that the fittings on tank underneath are vulnerable, fuel sender under rear seats or just puncture a hole in it without static as decommissioning cars do this.
I have a kitten, 7 months old. Dad was a Maine Coon. I've had to learn to teleport to keep that little bugger from escaping through the damn letterbox. Sprinting? That's like a slow mo replay.... Not even joking. Hugo he's called. I'll have his nuts off myself if he carries on. Or a rug and a Tagine, Not fussy.Anyone with a young grandson has to occasionally sprint
Or an ESS pup!
I just played through the same scenario in my head and my automatic thought process went like this:
1. I'm too close to the blast site and there is nowhere safe to hide here.
2. This is a three minute warning siren but maybe there might be a bit more time than that.
3. Get in a car and drive at top speed to put as much distance as possible between me and the target blast site.
4. If there is any warning in the sky that a missile is about to strike in the next few seconds stop the car next to a drain, pull off the cover and get underground fast.
5. Then close my eyes and put my fingers in my ears to try and protect my ear drums from the pressure shock wave.
6. Pray.
Last edited:
If you’re close enough to a blast that getting in a drain and covering eyes/ears is necessary, you’re probably only saving yourself from instant death so that you can die the much more gruesome death of radioactive fallout.
The odds would not be good I admit. But not zero either.
If there is any chance at all, no matter how small, I will grab it with both hands and fight like hell to the very last second. That's just my attitude to life and that kind indomitable spirit sometimes works miracles. Often against seemingly impossible odds that would have others give up without even trying.
Regarding hiding in a drain. Time is your friend when it comes to radioactive decay from a nuclear missile explosion. It will be intense at first but if you can get through the first two to three days the worst of it will have passed. After just two weeks it is will be back to almost normal background radiation levels. How long could I stay down a drain for? Probably more than the initial two or three most critical days if my life depended on it (and I was lucky enough for the weather not to rain and wash radioactive fallout down to where I was hiding).
Last edited:
Having watched Threads in my youth, my plan of action is to head towards the nearest likely target with all possible speed and get it over with.
Things have changed a lot since that film was made. Modern nuclear missiles tend to have smaller sized warheads on them and have more accurate targeting. There are also fewer of them in existence than there was during the cold war. Back then there were many more and they were bigger hence the M.A.D. situation. Now they are (mostly) smaller in size, more precise and will likely be used to hit pinpoint targets with a large but still more localized ground burst (or even subterranean burst) rather than the enormous medium altitude air bursts which would have been expected to happen during the cold war.
Also with modern weather predicting computer simulation systems the old theory about a nuclear winter blocking out the sun for years has now been debunked. It would likely be a shorter nuclear autumn at worst. The reality is that the vast majority of people would likely survive the initial stage of major global nuclear exchange. You will probably live past the initial exchange even if you took no action at all. However you would then be left living in the aftermath of it which would be dangerous and at which point I expect survival instinct would kick in and you would try to stay alive. That is when your bushcraft or homesteading skills may come in useful.
Last edited:
I doubt they would have returned to normal within 2 weeks, fallen significantly yes, but not back to normal. Some areas would be quite clean (I.e hard surfaces) where wind and rain would have washed the fallout away, but other areas (ditches, drains, grassed areas etc) would be significantly concentrated.
So it would be a case of ‘just carry on as normal’
Water sources would be contaminated, areas would be no go zones etc, and without appropriate RADIAC equipment (and the knowledge to understand what it is telling you) you would have no idea.
I spent 58 hours in the Chernobyl exclusion zone in 2008, combination of photo-journalism and being a gopher for some scientist collecting animal carcasses.
I can assure you, despite the significant Soviet attempts to decontaminate the land there were an absolutely shocking amount of areas where my Geiger counter would go nuts, places I didn’t expect as well, like in the lee of a building, inside a greenhouse, etc. granted walking the actual roads etc the radiation was only 2-3 times normal background so perfectly fine, but it me of the forested areas where significantly elevated - enough so that even medium term habitation (weeks) would have been an issue. Short term would probably be fine though, as long as you could get to a normal radiation level area or protected shelter within a few days.
Also
- ground (on or just under the surface) burst produce a LOT more radioactive fallout than air burst due to the amount of ‘debris’ flung upwards
- air burst will absolutely flatten everything underneath it though - like a giant fist had punched the earth
We wouldn’t have a nuclear winter though, that’s deffo been debunked.
If you didn’t perish in the initial explosion (s) then it would be disease/lack of resources/injuries but minimal healthcare that would kill a lot of people next
So it would be a case of ‘just carry on as normal’
Water sources would be contaminated, areas would be no go zones etc, and without appropriate RADIAC equipment (and the knowledge to understand what it is telling you) you would have no idea.
I spent 58 hours in the Chernobyl exclusion zone in 2008, combination of photo-journalism and being a gopher for some scientist collecting animal carcasses.
I can assure you, despite the significant Soviet attempts to decontaminate the land there were an absolutely shocking amount of areas where my Geiger counter would go nuts, places I didn’t expect as well, like in the lee of a building, inside a greenhouse, etc. granted walking the actual roads etc the radiation was only 2-3 times normal background so perfectly fine, but it me of the forested areas where significantly elevated - enough so that even medium term habitation (weeks) would have been an issue. Short term would probably be fine though, as long as you could get to a normal radiation level area or protected shelter within a few days.
Also
- ground (on or just under the surface) burst produce a LOT more radioactive fallout than air burst due to the amount of ‘debris’ flung upwards
- air burst will absolutely flatten everything underneath it though - like a giant fist had punched the earth
We wouldn’t have a nuclear winter though, that’s deffo been debunked.
If you didn’t perish in the initial explosion (s) then it would be disease/lack of resources/injuries but minimal healthcare that would kill a lot of people next
Nuclear power station meltdowns are very different to nuclear missile explosions. A nuclear missile explosion is a massive but instantaneous event where all of the radiation is released all at once and then it decays over time. A nuclear power station meltdown is a continuous ongoing event which keeps on pumping out fresh radioactivity over a long period of time, potentially for many years.
Last edited:
Yes it would still be slightly higher than normal background radiation levels after two weeks but not by much. It is generally accepted that after two weeks it would be safe to go outside again with no protection. It is the first two to three days which are the most critical by far. That is the nature of half-life decay.
There will be some more localized pockets or areas where there will be a higher concentration of fallout. Corners other nooks and crannies where fallout could blow to and collect for instance. Also some plants or trees could store some radioactivity and potentially release it later when eaten or burned.
Last edited:
Similar threads
